Tuesday, 8 December 2009

Busting with Nostalgia!

With the release of a Buster Special imminent, former sub-editor Dez Skinn has just posted this 1970s image of the editorial team online. Pictured looking like something straight out of Life on Mars but with comics are the staff of Buster, from left to right: assistant managing editor Sid Bicknell, Dez himself, art assistant Keith Robson, art editor Bill Reid and editor Lennox Wenn.

"Looking at the pic, a few observations," notes Dez, noting the bottle of wine on the desk. "Must have been an office party, hence the happy-go-lucky carefree wild 'n' crazy look we've all got!"

He also notes the half-naked woman on wall, along with defaced royalty snaps and Charlie Peace - Victorian and contemporary versions "His lookalike old Jack Pamby was the artist," Dez recalls. "'Wotcha Yorkie', he'd greet me with on a a weekly basis. I remember he had a decidedly scary grin!".

As for the smoking - yes, people used to be able to smoke inside! - Dez says it was quite an addictive look/taste/habit. "We ended up with three of us chuffing away (can I say that?) on pipes on one office! Lovely smell, but bins full of yucky pipe cleaners and hours wasted poking and puffing, lighting and sucking, stoking and smoking. Ah, heady days indeed..."

The site downthetubes.net, which began publishing in 1999, is edited by John Freeman whose credits include editor of Doctor Who Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, Star Wars Magazine, and Marvel UK titles such as Overkill, Death's Head II, Warheads and others. He's currently editor of the upcoming Strip Magazine for Print Media Productions.

About the Writers:

• Matthew Badham has written features for Judge Dredd: The Megazine, the Forbidden Planet International blog and more

• Jeremy Briggs contributes news, reviews, interviews and historical articles on British comics. He is a guest writer on Steve Holland's UK comics history blog, Bear Alley, and has written for Comics International, TV Zone, Spaceship Away and Omnivistascope.

• David Hailwood has written comic strips for various publications, including TOXIC, Accent UK, Bulletproof and Futurequake. He also writes comedy material for TV, and regularly contributes to the Temple APA (a showcase for UK comic writers and artists).

• Andy Luke is a writer who draws: he's s created the eponymous Andy Luke's Comic Book, Gran, Absence: a comic about epilepsy, Hold the Phones, It's Alex Jones, and graphic novel, The Watch Thief. He's written about comics too, mainly for Bugpowder.com, and has been involved with the Caption comics festival in Oxford. He currently lives in Belfast with a large box of pasta and a 7ft tall cigarette, and can be found online at http://andy-luke.com and http://awriterwhodraws.com

• Ian Wheeler is a freelance writer who also edited the highly-acclaimed British comics fanzine Eagle Flies Again.